


Perfect Storm

by rosehathawhey



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-02 23:43:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5268341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosehathawhey/pseuds/rosehathawhey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It happened by accident- noticing Dr. Wells in a... Less than appropriate way. But once she did there was no going back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO! I started watching The Flash less than a week ago and already I'm here. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Who knows. This is going to be a multi chapter fic. I haven't decided how long it's going to be but I'd predict at least 4 or 5 chapters. Maybe longer. Since I haven't been watching the show for very long I may get some random details wrong but hopefully not. I apologize in advance if I do.
> 
> Also, I know some people follow me so they'll probably get an email that I've posted a new story. In terms of my Bethyl fic (Out of the Woods)... I'm not sure if I'll ever finish it. After 5x10 came and went with nothing I just sort of lost my drive. I still love Bethyl but I also try not to think of them too much, if that makes any sense. Maybe one day it'll change because I really loved that fic and obviously it has a special place in my heart since it was the first fanfic I ever wrote.  
> Anyway- watch The Flash and ship Snowells, please and thank you!

When it happened, she wasn't ready.  
  
Who could be?   
  
One second your boss is standing over your shoulder, commending your work. Then all of the sudden you're picturing him lifting you onto your desk, his hand slowly trailing up your skirt.   
  
It's impossible to be ready for that.   
  
_No one_ could be.  
  
When it happened she shot up from her seat, roughly bumping into his shoulder as she backed away. A quick excuse about having to use the bathroom got her out of the room. As soon as the lab's door closed behind her she was sprinting down the hall.  
  
At least, as much as she was capable of sprinting while wearing heels.   
  
For the hundredth time, Caitlin was grateful that the bathrooms of STAR Labs weren't communal. Sometimes in the middle of a 15 hour workday she just needed to sink down onto the (thankfully) pristine tile floor and let herself breathe.   
  
This time was a little different. This time she was attempting to slow her heart rate. Her chest had begun aching from the intense pounding so she really needed it to stop.   
  
When it did she pushed herself up off the floor and made her way to the mirror that hung over the sink. Her cheeks were bright red, burning against the back of her hands. Caitlin turned the faucet on to its coldest setting but stopped herself as she was halfway to splashing water onto her face.  
  
For the hundredth time she resented that she had begun wearing makeup in her day to day life. The lipstick, the mascara, a light smattering of blush on her cheeks... It was a nuisance more than anything.  
  
In college she had discovered that when a woman was attractive more doors opened to her. The sexism behind that fact made her cringe. But not as much as the thought of a lackluster career did. The realization had led her down a disastrous path of bright red lipstick and false eyelashes, but she'd eventually figured it out. With an IQ of 163, Caitlin hadn't been willing to let makeup be her downfall. Instead she had thrown herself into learning how to apply makeup the way she threw herself into everything else: with a ridiculous amount of dedication.   
  
Half a dozen subscriptions to beauty magazines had clogged her mailbox for months. After ripping out every other grossly sexist article that the magazines had to offer, there had still been a hefty stack of papers left. Every night Caitlin had forced herself to tear away from her studies long enough to try out one "look".

If she was being honest then she was willing to admit it had actually been kind of... Fun.  
  
Except for right now, when it was not only preventing her from cooling herself down, it was also highlighting the blotchy red spots that had taken over her cheeks.   
  
_It’s nothing_ , she told herself. _Everyone has random, weird thoughts on occasion. All she needed to do was ignore it._     
  
But as she moved to open the bathroom door, another image flew through her mind. This time of Dr. Wells pushing her bra strap to the side and his mouth replacing where it had been. It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was the kind of kiss that would leave a mark on her pale skin.  
  
Holy shit, she was fantasizing about her boss giving her a hickey. She had reached new lows.  
  
Sighing, Caitlin let her hand drop from the door handle, making the decision to camp out in the bathroom for a little longer. As long as it took for Wells to leave her lab. Research be damned. Particle accelerator be damned.   
  
All she needed was a few more minutes, anyway.  
  
\--------  
  
Later that night she saw him in the hallway near the cafeteria. She'd been on her way out for the night but had decided to stop for a cup of coffee before she left. It may have been 7:45 at night but it wasn't like the coffee was strong. She had just grown attached to the taste of coffee that was grossly watered down.   
  
_Thanks a lot, student loans._    
  
"Snow," Dr. Wells nodded to her as they neared each other. "I'm sorry I had to leave before you got back earlier. Are you feeling better?"   
  
For a second his question caused her to panic (How did he know?!), but he didn't appear to be making fun of her. At least, he wasn't smiling. Actually, Caitlin realized, Wells hardly ever smiled outside of observing one of his employee’s accomplishments.   
  
Which was totally not something that mattered to her. Who cared what he thought and did outside of her job performance? Who cared what he did naked.   
  
Caitlin Janine Snow certainly didn't.   
  
"Caitlin?" Wells' voice brought her back into the real world, his tone one of concern.   
  
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine," she nodded too enthusiastically.   
  
"No, I asked if you were coming into work tomorrow."  
  
She was about to answer with a yes (Caitlin always came in on Saturdays). But before she could even open her mouth, her eyes moved down to his jaw line. A jaw line that had suddenly, magically, overnight become ridiculously defined.  
  
"No!" Caitlin's voice raised an octave over her normal one. "I'm really sorry but I can't."   
  
"There's really no need to be sorry," Dr. Wells assured. "It's the weekend. I rarely say this to an employee but you work too much. Two days off won't ruin our operation."   
  
Then with a quick pat on her shoulder he was gone.   
  
Caitlin gulped in the stale air around her. How long had she been holding her breath for? _Crap_ , her face was probably blue or something.   
  
As she walked out the door it suddenly dawned on her what Dr. Wells had meant when he asked whether or not she felt better. After a half hour in the bathroom there was really only one thing that he _could_ be asking. A wave of embarrassment, coupled with an equally strong wave of nausea, overtook her.  
  
It was settled. She was quitting immediately and moving to another country. 

Except… She really wanted to see the particle accelerator finished and turned on. So she’d be leaving immediately after _that._  
  
For now she would call up Lisa. Call up Lisa and go to some hip, overpriced bar. Call up Lisa, go to some hip, overpriced bar, and sleep with some random jerk who she would never have to see again.   
  
Yep. That was the best way to deal with this whole thing. The problem was just that she hadn't gotten laid in a while. Come Monday everything would be fine.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time that she saw Dr. Wells was almost a week later in S.T.A.R.'s main lab, nicknamed The Hub by someone long before Caitlin had even begun imagining this job. Cisco had texted her as soon as she'd sat down for lunch and begged her to bring him a hot chocolate. His excuse was that Dr. Wells was in the lab with a bunch of them and Cisco didn't want to look like a bad employee by leaving to go get a kid's drink.

Caitlin immediately agreed, but only because she was _such_ a good friend. It had nothing to do with the prospect of seeing Dr. Wells again. Nothing at all.

Truthfully, she hadn't really thought of him at all since her brain had gone completely haywire and tried to ruin her career. She had made sure of it.

Lisa had immediately agreed to go out when Caitlin had called her up. The night had ended with a painfully handsome cop named Eddie. The next morning had begun the same way. Then brunch, reading books that had been on her shelf for years, deciding she _needed_ to learn Italian. Even doing the unthinkable and going for a run. All of it had kept her mind too preoccupied to think of anything remotely related to her boss.

On Monday and Tuesday she had managed to avoid him. Which was why it wasn't even a big deal that today she was looking forward to seeing him. He was a nice guy, after all. Someone she wanted to learn from. To learn from someone you had to be around them. It was natural to want to see him.

Plus, with five days of not seeing him came five days without his help on any of her projects. It wasn't Dr. Wells' fault. One of lab's physicists had called in sick for the week and instead of shoving off the work on his other employees, Wells had chosen to pick up the slack. She could have sought him out if she really had wanted to.

Everything was fine now, though. Just a quick drop off to Cisco and then she could go back to her break in peace.

"Hell yeah," Cisco shot up excitedly as soon as Caitlin walked into the lab. Everyone in the room turned from the central computer screen to look at her.

"Sorry," Caitlin shrugged sheepishly when all of their eyes landed on the drink in her hand. "I should have asked if anyone else wanted something."

"Yeah, Cisco, way to be considerate," Kenny, one of the other mechanical engineers, laughed and launched a pen at Cisco's head.

Cisco picked the pen up off the floor and threw it back at his friend.

"I would have given you some but not anymore!"

"Relax, guys," Dr. Wells cut off Kenny as he prepared to throw the pen back at Cisco. "Need I remind you all that the combined IQ of the people in this room is over a thousand? Let's act like it."

Half of the room nodded their heads seriously, probably in hopes that Dr. Wells would see them agreeing with him. The other half looked like they were fighting tooth and nail not to laugh. Caitlin just felt awkward.

She walked quickly over to Cisco, purposefully keeping her gaze trained on her friend and nothing else. After she handed him the drink, Caitlin turned to leave, when Kenny called out to stop her.

"Are you coming tonight?"

"Where?" Caitlin had no idea what he was talking about.

"To karaoke night at The Press Box." Kenny shot Cisco an incredulous look, "She's bringing you hot chocolate and you didn't even bother to invite her out with us?"

"Caitlin is afraid of karaoke night,” Cisco threw up his hands in defense. "There's no way she'd come with!"

Caitlin was about to point out that Cisco was right when one of the other women in the room, Janice, spoke up.

"Come on, Caitlin, you have to come! Dr. Wells even agreed to."

She didn't like that this new piece of information was a legitimate draw for her. Of course, it was probably just because she really didn't know too much about Dr. Wells. It made her uncomfortable to know so little about her boss’ mannerisms and moods. Those were the kind of things that Caitlin tried to know about the people who could make or break her career. Once in college she had spent almost three hours stalking her chemistry professor's Facebook. It was only natural for the prospect of his presence in a casual setting to peak her interest.

"To be fair to Miss Snow, it took two days of persuasion to get me to agree."

"Please," Janice begged. "I'm tired of going out with guys all the time. They're boring."

Caitlin forced herself not to look at Dr. Wells.

"Fine," she finally agreed with an exaggerated sigh. "But if I go then Kenny and Cisco have to do a duet together."

"Agreed," Cisco spoke up immediately. "Drinks are on you then, though."

"Worth it."

 

* * *

 

Caitlin knew it was immature, but she really enjoyed the feeling of being intoxicated. At least the early stages of it.

The part where your brain felt fuzzy, yet everything seemed louder and brighter. She also enjoyed the invention of smart phones so that the enjoyable buzz in her mind didn't rob her of the memory of Cisco and Kenny’s rendition of "Let's Get It On".

That small portion of the night had even managed to get a laugh out of Dr. Wells. Actually, he’d been smiling and laughing a lot tonight. It was stupid of Caitlin to notice something like that but as the night had gone on she had become less inhibited about where her gaze fell. And that meant that more often than not it drifted over to her boss. Which was easy since he had stayed planted on the same bar stool for the entire night.

Then, one and a half drinks into the night, tipsiness finally brought Caitlin over to the bar stool next to him. It was just a spur of the moment decision, of course. A moment that included walking over to the bar, spending time choosing a beer from the unnecessarily long list, paying for his drink and her own, calculating the correct amount of tip in her mind, and carefully walking back to the table so as to not spill their drinks.

So, it was a very long moment. But still just a moment. A 'spur of' one. It really couldn't have been helped.

"Here you go," Caitlin placed the full beer glass on the table and slid it over to Wells. "Your glass was empty, so," she motioned to the drink she’d bought.

"Thank you, Miss Snow," he took a small sip of the drink and looked at her with surprise. "This is actually what I was planning on ordering next."

Caitlin shrugged. "Honestly, I just picked the most expensive beer on the menu. I noticed that you were drinking fancier ones so I figured it was my best bet."

Wells let out a small huff of laughter. "That's as good a pick as any." He motioned to her wine glass, "Not much of a beer fan?"

"Nope," she shook her head. "I never liked the aftertaste. Even the expensive, craft type stuff." She paused. "Actually, can you keep a secret?"

Wells nodded.

"If I had to choose any beer, I would probably say that I liked PBR the best."

"Well, that's the hip drink these days, isn't it?"

Caitlin tried but she couldn't stop herself from laughing. The word 'hip' just sounded so stilted coming from him.

Dr. Wells raised his eyebrows at her, his lip twitching as if he was trying to hold back a smile.

"Dr. Snow, are you laughing at me?"

"I promise I’m not,” she said when she finally managed to stop laughing. “You’re just too young to be using the word hip in an un-ironic way. It’s a compliment, really.” Then, without overthinking it, she spoke, “you know you can call me C-"

"Shots!" Kenny popped up, seemingly out of nowhere, and cut her off. Caitlin flinched. His voice was loud, even by her current standards.

Everyone in their group quickly flocked to the table and grabbed one.  Caitlin instinctively picked one up along with them, not even caring when a bit sloshed over the side. Before she could raise the glass to her lips though, she remembered that her boss was sitting right next to her.

Wells noticed her hesitation and waved her on.

"Far be it for me to spoil anyone’s fun. As long as none of you call in 'sick' tomorrow because of a hangover."

"I've actually never had a hangover," Caitlin piped up, her voice more excited than necessary. She ignored her brain telling her that was a good indication that she probably didn't need the shot that she was about to consume. "You just have to chug water along with every glass of alcohol and voila! You wake up the next morning good as new."

Dr. Wells picked up one of the shots still left on the table. "You'd think with three degrees that I would have thought of that before now. It certainly would have saved me from plenty of pain during those years obtaining said degrees."

With that, he raised his glass out in front of him. Everyone immediately responded by bringing their own glasses forward and clinking them together.

It was only because she'd been drinking that Caitlin noticed when the back of their hands touched as everyone put their glasses together. It was only because she was drinking that Caitlin noticed how warm his hand felt against her cold one. It was only because she was drinking that Caitlin glanced over at him as she downed her shot. Although, she was sure that she wasn’t drunk enough to have hallucinated the smile he’d sent her way after he placed his empty glass back down onto the table.

What _really_ threw her, though, was the walk out to all of their respective cabs. It was over an hour after her last drink and the night had gone on long enough for the alcohol to be all but but gone from her system. Instead of feeling light and happy, she just felt tired. It was clear from the rest of her coworker’s expressions that they felt the same way.

As they all said their goodbye’s (or, rather, see-you-tomorrow’s) Caitlin felt herself starting to doze off while she leaned on the edge of one of the cab’s parked out front.

“Miss Snow,” she suddenly heard Dr. Wells’ voice directly in front of her. “I think you might be taking a nap on my cab.”

Her eyes shot open and Caitlin pushed herself off the car in horror.

“I wasn’t,” she insisted. “The light- it was just that the light from the bar’s sign was hurting my eyes so I just…” Instead of finishing she gave a quick rap of her knuckles to the cab door that she’d just been leaning on.

Caitlin was getting ready to curl up and die right there on the street when she actually managed to look over at Wells. He had a small smile on his face, his eyes teasing. Which made her want to curl up and die even more, but for different reasons.

_How did anyone have eyes that blue?_

“I promise that tomorrow I’ll bring my A-game,” she laughed sheepishly. She just really didn’t want him to think that she was going to be falling asleep over her work tomorrow.

“I had no doubt about that, Miss Snow,” Wells assured. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you bring anything less than your full effort to your work.”

Caitlin waved off the compliment. “Well, I don’t think anyone would be dumb enough to slack off on their first few months of a new job.”

“You’d be surprised,” he smirked, and she was pretty sure that she saw his gaze flick briefly to Kenny. With a quick wink (one that she was sure she wasn’t imagining) he stepped around her to open his cab door. “Have a good night, Caitlin.”

The use of her first name threw her. Instead of responding to him, her mouth just hung slightly open in surprise. Wells must have noticed because she saw him laughing to himself as his cab drove away.

 

* * *

 

When she got into work the next morning there was a cup of coffee waiting for her in her cubby, still hot. Caitlin didn’t even try to hold back her smile.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews are always appreciated!


End file.
